1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an electrical connector, and particularly to an electrical connector mounted on a bottom side of a printed circuit board.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Electrical connectors mounted on a printed circuit board (PCB) are well known in the art. IEEE 1394 electrical connectors include a shielding case having a mating orientation key formed on a mating sleeve of the shielding case for securing correct polarity of a mating complementary connector. The key is formed on a lower side of the mating sleeve and has an inwardly indented surface. A detent lock is formed on the shielding case protruding into a housing of the connector in opposition to the key on the mating sleeve. The key and the detent lock cooperate to secure the complementary connector in the electrical connector. The shielding case also forms a pair of metal feet on a side opposite to that forming the detent lock and adjacent to the key for mounting the electrical connector to the PCB. Under special circumstances, the electrical connectors may be required to be mounted on a bottom side of the PCB. Referring to FIG. 6, a conventional IEEE 1394 electrical connector 500 is mounted on a top side of a PCB 200. Note that a mating orientation key 510 is positioned on a lowermost panel of a mating sleeve (not labeled). An identical electrical connector 600 is shown mounted on a bottom side of the PCB 200 with a key 610 now being positioned on an uppermost panel of a mating sleeve (not labeled). A complementary connector (not shown) which is mated right-side-up with the electrical connector 500 must be turned upside-down to properly mate with the electrical connector 600. An incorrect mating between the electrical connector 600 and the complementary connector may damage either or both of the connectors.
Heretofore, to avoid the aforementioned mismating action, the key 610 of the electrical connector 600 mounted on the bottom side of the PCB 200 was provided on a bottom panel of the mating sleeve so that a mating orientation of the complementary connector remained unchanged. A detent lock 611 of the connector 600 was correspondingly moved to an upper side of the shielding case but was now separated from the shielding case because of the limitation imposed by the location of the metal feet 612. However, with the ever-increasing transmission speeds of applications, along with the consequent higher quality required from electrical connectors, such a configuration is often impractical and is neither cost nor quality effective.
Hence, an improved electrical connector is required to overcome the aforementioned problems.